We are alike, Kathy thought. You are a desperate one, too. She was incredulous that she could be so happy when it was so perfectly clear that the situation was impossible, could not possibly last, and that in any case this man was doomed already.
In this novel, Charmian Clift broke the rules of the romance genre by her representation of a relationship between a middle class Australian woman and a Greek sponge diver who is an outcast even within his own society. Both are 'desperate' trapped in loveless marriages and overcome by a sense of nameless dread. But when these twin souls fall in love in the ruins of an ancient citadel above the port-town of a remote and poverty-stricken Greek island, 'honour' becomes 'mimic' a false imitation of itself and is cast aside, together with unhappiness and fear.
Honour's Mimic combines the authentic Greek setting of Charmian Clift's travel memoirs with the fine writing that has caused her to be described as Australia's greatest essayist.
'Charmian Clift broke the rules of the romance genre with this representation of a relationship between a middle-class Australian woman and a Greek sponge diver who is an outcast even within his own society.' Readings Monthly
'The [writing] is but it is distinctive in its potency, and for the way the love story is interwoven with the brutal realities of class, immigration, and mid-century morality. We devoured it.' The Paris End
'Honour's Mimic is a superbly realised portrait of the links between true love and mortality. It is about how being in another country can unmoor and perhaps free you to find "a passionate affirmation of that old lost desire to face challenge and danger, to be brave, to dare for the truth".' Declan Fry
'At the heart of Honour's Mimic is a transgressive, all-consuming love story that also offers an incisive, often chilling, indictment of the measures and strictures of class and society.' Heidi Maier, INDaily
'With the compelling flavour of a grotesque and shimmering fairytale that carries no consoling ending, Honour's Mimic casts a potent spell.' Carmel Bird, The Saturday Paper
